Fleeing from France

My belongings have conclusively bred, in objection to my leaving. Really. And my hatred for the three flights of spiral stairs has depended since having to make tens of journeys up and down with shoeboxes. So once I was cleared out of the house and Dad had saved me  arrived, we took the train into the centre of Paris one last time to Charles de Gaulle, by the Arc de Triomphe. After climbing (and consequently descending) the 284 steps to the top of Arc de Triomphe we walked from the monumental arch, sorrowfully leaving the stunning I-don’t-have-a-pair-like-those-already elegant trousers from Zara on the rack, buying an ‘I Love Paris’ t-shirt (couldn’t leave without one!), down to Notre Dame, up and down the right bank three times in search for Shakespeare and Co which we eventually found after giving up, and down to Bastille. A sunny and relaxing day. Until Caroline’s intrusion. And I seriously had no idea how ‘crazy’ she could get.

Tip 1. Establish a ‘PAY ME’ routine from the moment you arrive as an au-pair, and always keep on top of it - so you make sure you get paid on the same day each and every week. I tried. I really did. It sounds a lot easier than reality, particularly if you have parents coming and going and trying to avoid you or pull the ‘we paid you didn’t we?’ trick. But Connie doesn’t give up easily, no siree. So I pretty much chased her round the house, in a completely polite and un-obsessive way (!) as each time she’d walk out or mumble something and disappear. In the end she ACTUALLY disappeared… back to Paris! 

So Friday she spent trying to reason why she shouldn’t pay me two-weeks’ pay, including the debacle with the garden plough. Tip 2. Have family on hand, even on speed dial. My granny ended up doing more of the battling than me! But over the 24 hours I felt like I was in the next French 100 years war with this ever-increasing irrational French woman. What have I got myself into? Is it ever possible for me to leave somewhere without burning bridges?

Late afternoon consisted of waiting for Margot to never turn up, resulting in no tennis, and Caroline demanding I bring Marie on the train to Paris (Charles de Gaulle) to drop her off with Caroline (of course, it was up to me to pay for our tickets…), so we headed off to Paris still with no response from Margot. Once again we spent a long time searching for Caroline - such irony that the same exact thing happened on the first day I arrived with Marie - due to the numerous exits around one of the main monuments of Paris. She handed my money over, relatively stress-free,  and I returned home on the train pulling along Marie’s rejected school bag. Once at home I discovered there to be no sign of Margot, so my Dad came and collected me, I left all my keys on the table as Caroline had requested and closed the door for the last time. Let’s close this chapter and go home! 

But not quite. Later that evening when I went back to my phone I found several messages and calls from Caroline, launching into vicious texts of threats and accusations that I’d ‘abandoned’ Margot before reducing to literally begging me to rescue her because she’d gone back to the house (despite me bringing Marie all the way to Paris…) and realised she had no keys. She DID have keys, as I was the one who had to go to the key-cutters three times in one day to get her some spare keys: she’s such a scatterbrain that I knew she’d lose them within moments. And apparently it slipped out of her brain the fact she said and I said I’d leave all my keys on the table for her, just in case I turn out to be a crazed-lunatic who returns to the house of hell in the dead of night to pinch their much-beloved cereal. Exactly. 

So after a night out with Dad converting me into the world of Sushi, we returned to the hotel and I was delighted to find he’d got me my own room, which was more of a small apartment complete with kitchen area, cupboards full of utensils, two study desks and a large bathroom. I was in heaven. Well, I would have been had I not been paranoid that a battalion of French police were going to crash through my door at any moment. I still don’t even know why Caroline got so crazed and angry! I eventually had a reply back from Margot, delightedly informing me that ‘so sorry I forgot about tennis, I’m staying at a friends Gros Bisous!!!’. Maybe it’s just as well I’d fled the house just so Margot wasn’t around to savagely throttle. 

It's feeling like a game of Jumangi here... Anyone who has seen the film will know it's about a magic board game which descends the players into a living nightmare with a host of dangers that can only be stopped by finishing the game. Is it time to throw it back into the sea yet?!